


a crow loves a murder

by lileura



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: F/F, Grand Prix Final Banquet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-24
Updated: 2017-07-24
Packaged: 2018-11-23 08:02:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11398431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lileura/pseuds/lileura
Summary: They taught Mila how to win, but no one has ever taught her how to lose.





	a crow loves a murder

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Val_Creative](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Val_Creative/gifts).



> A caveat for liberties taken with the typical Grand Prix Final schedule. The title is from a Lemony Snicket quote: "I will love you as a thief loves a gallery and as a crow loves a murder..."

This is how it happens: in the free skate, Mila slams into the ice on her last jumping pass, and Italy’s Sara Crispino wins the gold.

That’s one.

*

Later, after the award ceremony and the press conference and the retreat to the hotel, after the session of self-beration she indulges in before slipping into a photogenic dress and a fresh mask of make-up, afterwards, she sees Sara at the banquet. Sara’s eyes are bright and her lips are red. Her crow-dark hair is luminescent under the warm lighting.

Mila swallows and tucks a loose curl behind her ear. She turns around, almost walks into Yuri. He’s staring suspiciously at her, slouched in a manner that would almost certainly make Lilia Anatolyevna throw a fit.

Mila stares back, flatly.

“You look like how Katsudon did last year,” Yuri announces, an odd twist to his mouth. “Gross, it’s not like you _completely_ headcased today.”

“Thanks, Yura,” Mila says dryly.

“Just don’t fuck up next time,” he demands.

Mila gestures towards the entrance. “Look, Otabek Altin’s there,” she says, and her smile must be either convincing or slightly crazed because Yuri disappears after a final glower.

It’s a little chilly in the function room. She wears her dress like armour, but her arms are bare. Her right ankle kills. She swipes a glass of champagne and downs half the liquid. The evidence of forty calories consumed is a pink smudge left on the rim of the glass.

(She likes red lipstick, but they keep telling her that it isn’t her colour.)

In the next second, she feels the glass neatly plucked from her hand.

That’s two, she thinks, rather distantly.

“If you wanted to dance with the Grand Prix Champion,” Sara says, “it’s hardly a prerequisite to get blind drunk.”

“What?” Mila frowns, and then she feels warmth rise through her cheeks upon recollection. " _Hey_ , I’m hardly—”

“I’d dance with you anytime, you know.” Sara’s grinning at her. This grin is different from the Sara Crispino beam in the glide out from the triple lutz-triple loop, very short entry, garnering positive grades of execution like clockwork. This grin, it’s almost difficult to look head-on at. Mila bites her lip and can't stop herself from glancing away.

“I wouldn’t want to be a cliché,” Mila says.

Sara laughs, low and rich and sophisticated, and Mila feels pale next to her saturated colours. “Let me get you a drink, then,” Sara offers. “I’ll get you a drink and ask for your number and then walk you to your doorstep under the moonlight.”

“I already had a drink, though,” Mila counters. “I wonder where it went.”

Sara shrugs, a graceful, fluid motion. “Beats me,” she says, and takes a drawn-out sip from the glass she's annexed. When her lips come away in a pout, Mila stares at the red gloss stain. It’s superimposed on the pink. Her heart is rabbit-quick. She glances back at Sara, and her face suddenly seems much closer than before.

“Why don’t you steal it back,” Sara murmurs to her. Her breath is ghost-light on the hollow of Mila’s cheeks. “It’s not like you to give up. Give me a fight. Like you’ll give me an actual fight at Euros, won’t you?”

The shame that had been curled up in Mila’s gut flares up into something hot. She feels very warm all over. She stares back at Sara. The proximity of Sara’s eyes has somehow wrested motion from Mila’s abilities.

That’s three.

That’s three, and Mila wants to say _stop stealing things from me_.

“I’ll give you more than a fight,” is what Mila says instead. Irrational impulse is darting up her spine. The adrenaline rushes to her head, as though she’s sweeping her right leg forward for the axel takeoff. She closes the distance — god, it’s a very short distance — and learns again what it is like to step into the air, to be weightless on the top of the world, to have red lipstick on her mouth.

She breaks away with the stem of the champagne glass securely held between her fingers.

“This is mine,” Mila says, not entirely able to suppress her triumphant smirk. This victory feels the same. This victory feels different. She throws back the rest of the champagne and glances at Sara when she fails to say a word.

“I really want to kiss you again,” Sara breathes, finally.

Before her mind catches up to her mouth, Mila blurts out, “I thought _I_ was the one who just kissed _you_.”

(She's never felt quite so young.)

“Oh,” Sara says. They stare at each other. Mila feels her stomach twist. But she thinks that she wouldn’t mind staying here forever, locked in this precarious game of— of what? If this is a game, she thinks, maybe she wouldn’t quite mind losing. Just this once.

The corners of Sara’s mouth turn up, and she shifts closer. “Well,” she murmurs, “can I?”

Mila doesn't break from her gaze, but her mind takes time to catch up. “Can you…?”

“Can I kiss you?”

Mila stares dumbly at her, but she seems serious enough. “Yes,” Mila chokes out disbelievingly. “Yes, _yes_ , you can.”

Sara reaches out, and her fingers touch the ends of Mila’s curls. “Really?”

“You’re going to kill me,” Mila says, and she doesn’t ask _is that what you want_.

Sara leans forward and steals the taste of champagne from her mouth again. Is that… four? Mila can’t even remember. _Stop stealing things from me,_ she thinks, a little nonsensically, _because if it’s you, I think I might be willing to give anything up. That's not fair._

Afterwards, the room seems inexplicably brighter. Mila feels vaguely disoriented. Her blood is rushing through her head like the euphoric remnants of a triple flip, and even though Sara’s fingers are anchoring her to the ground, she feels like she is flying.

She looks around the crowded room: Yuri is retching into a crumpled napkin. Beside him, Viktor waves obnoxiously when she accidentally catches his eye. No one else is looking at them, and she revels in the strange intimacy.

“Anyway, you’ve been playing dirty,” Sara tells her. “This doesn’t count as a win against me, not when I handed it to you on a silver platter. So to speak.” She stands up and gestures apologetically to her brother, who is currently engaging in a rather expressive interpretation of a stunned beaver — quite realistic, if someone is to ask Mila, very likely to receive a top components score. Mila cracks a private smile. Sara says, “Next time, I’ll get you something better than champagne.”

Afterwards, Mila glances at her reflection in her compact mirror. She looks different, somehow. She decides that she likes it. With Sara’s red lipstick, she seems more alive. More colour to her skin, she thinks, and maybe something brighter in her eyes.

She snaps the mirror shut.

*

In Bratislava, against her choreographer’s advice, Mila steals Sara’s red lipstick. She applies it before her free skate, and applauds herself on her little rebellion. She feels oddly armoured in the knowledge that whatever she gives to the audience, whatever she loses in marks this time around, she is still invincible in some ways. This alone, or at least this feeling, no one can take from her.

 


End file.
